IP Protection

If 1Mby1M doesn’t sign NDAs, how is my intellectual property protected during group sessions or roundtables?

It’s true that 1Mby1M does not sign NDAs for its group sessions and roundtables. This is a common practice in many accelerator programs and venture capital circles. The reasoning often given is that investors and mentors see so many ideas that signing an NDA for every single one would be impractical and burdensome.

Given this, how is your intellectual property (IP) protected? It relies on a combination of factors and strategies you should employ:

1. The “Don’t Over-Disclose” Principle:

• Share enough to get feedback, but not your “secret sauce”: The goal in a group setting is to get high-level strategic advice, not to reveal every minute detail of your proprietary technology or unique algorithms. Focus on the problem you’re solving, your solution’s high-level approach, your market, team, and business model.
• Focus on the “What” and “Why,” not the “How”: Explain what you’re doing and why it’s important, but be cautious about sharing the specific, intricate details of how you do it, especially if those details constitute your core competitive advantage or trade secrets.
• Phased Disclosure: You don’t need to put every piece of confidential information in your initial pitch. As you progress and build trust (and especially if you move to private consulting), you can disclose more.

2. Legal Protections for Your IP (Independent of NDAs):

• Patents: If your intellectual property is a novel invention, process, or design, a patent (utility, design, or plant) provides the strongest legal protection. This gives you the exclusive right to make, use, and sell your invention for a period. Public disclosure can impact patentability, so discuss this with an IP attorney before extensive public sharing.
• Trade Secrets: For information that gives you a competitive edge by virtue of being secret (e.g., formulas, processes, specific customer lists, proprietary algorithms that aren’t patented), trade secret law protects you if you’ve taken “reasonable efforts to maintain its secrecy.” This is where NDAs with employees, contractors, and specific partners are crucial, but it’s also about internal protocols.
• Copyrights: Protect original works of authorship, such as software code, written content, designs, and marketing materials. Copyright is automatic upon creation, but registration strengthens your ability to enforce it.
• Trademarks: Protect your brand name, logo, slogans, and other identifiers that distinguish your goods or services. Registration offers stronger protection.

3. The “Execution is Key” Mindset:

• Ideas are Cheap, Execution is Everything: A common adage in the startup world is that ideas are abundant, but it’s the execution that truly matters. Even if someone hears your idea, the ability to build a team, develop the product, acquire customers, and scale the business is extremely difficult and is your real differentiator.
• Competitive Moat Beyond IP: Your competitive advantage often extends beyond just IP. It includes your team’s unique expertise, your go-to-market strategy, your customer relationships, network effects, brand, and speed of execution. These are harder to “steal.”

4. Trust and Reputation:

• Sramana Mitra’s Reputation: Sramana Mitra has built a global reputation over many years as a mentor and consultant. Her business relies heavily on trust within the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Any breach of trust regarding IP would be detrimental to her and the 1Mby1M program’s credibility.
• Community Norms: While not legally binding, there’s generally a strong ethical understanding within reputable accelerator and mentorship communities that participants respect each other’s ideas and don’t directly “steal” them.

In summary, while 1Mby1M doesn’t use NDAs for group settings, your intellectual property is protected by:

• Your strategic discretion: Only share what’s necessary for feedback, keeping your most sensitive “secret sauce” private.
• Formal IP protections: Actively pursue patents, copyrights, and trademarks for your core innovations.
• Trade secret measures: Implement internal controls to protect confidential business information.
• The inherent difficulty of execution: An idea alone is rarely enough; successful execution is the ultimate differentiator.
• The reputation and ethical standards of the program and its participants.

If you have highly sensitive, unpatented trade secrets that are central to your value proposition, and you feel you cannot get meaningful advice without disclosing them, then opting for Sramana Mitra’s private 1-on-1 consulting where you can discuss specific confidentiality terms would be the appropriate path.